From Gaza With Love

by JHSEsq on June 19, 2008

“When one is in a hole, it is imper­a­tive to stop dig­ging. If we are to win our free­dom, surely it will not be done with one brother dig­ging the grave of another.“
Dr. Mona El-Farra knows what she’s talk­ing about.

Today’s win­ning post is dated June 14, 2008 and it is called Quest For Free­dom. Don’t expect fluff and flow­ers. The author has been explain­ing to the blog world for quite some time. Lis­ten to the voice of one woman all the way back from 2006 as recorded on her blog From Gaza, with Love. “Sit­ting in my office, at the red cres­cent soci­ety for Gaza Strip, being unable to focus on what a im doing, the sound of the artillery shelling is too loud, it is so loud and makes me think all the time, what is the casu­alty outcome??When and where??”… and then this…“I could not sleep, shoot­ing con­tin­ued all through the night, so con­tin­u­ous and close to my build­ing that my daugh­ter was fright­ened. We both chose to sleep on the floor of my bed­room. I hardly slept.”

Things have not changed. Dr. Mona El-Farra is a physi­cian, human rights activist, and cit­i­zen of Pales­tine — who writes a blog. Not just any ole’ blog. She pens her thoughts from The Occu­pied Gaza Strip by the Mediter­ranean Sea. Con­di­tions in her part of the world make my excuses for not post­ing today laugh­able at best. Her top­ics range from women and health issues to human rights to the every­day vio­lence she sees all around. But there is no sen­sa­tion­al­ism here. Just the truth.

Today, the doc­tor wants to tell me about a choice she had to make and why she made it. She also needs to say some­thing else. She needs to tell me — any­body — that she is not a num­ber, that she is still alive and that her world and her peo­ple just want to live in peace. Sit­ting by a sea­side win­dow watch­ing her beloved sea and the fish­ing boats, she just as quickly sees it all wash away by the gunboat’s warn­ing fires — all reminders to Mona that her moments of peace by the water are fleet­ing. “Hear­ing about Gaza is much dif­fer­ent than liv­ing in Gaza,” writes Dr. El-Farra.

So, she takes us on a tour of her world, a very per­sonal tour, apol­o­giz­ing all the while for not post­ing and keep­ing us informed. With 10 litres of petrol and seem­ingly a mil­lion choices in her occu­pied land, she goes to.…no. I won’t tell you.

As riv­et­ing as this post is, I could not stop read­ing just one and spent some time get­ting to know her and the life she has bravely lived for years. She described her world in one post as liv­ing in a “big prison like Gaza.” Imag­ine view­ing your life as a pris­oner. And why does Mona write? Let her tell you. “I write to keep the link between myself and the out­side world , the nor­mal nat­ural world ‚with a deep feel­ing that I am like all of us in Gaza , we don’t belong to this world any more.…..it was not nice of me, not to update my blog, and to keep you informed about my life in Gaza.” In a recent inter­view she expressed how her writ­ing helps her feel that she is not alone. Most of us know that feel­ing. Few know it as well as Dr. El-Farra.

If any­one has an excuse for not post­ing today, it’s the Pales­tin­ian doc­tor. Her fas­ci­nat­ing blog is a must read. We are hon­ored to rec­og­nize her post Quest For Free­dom as The Ris­ing Blogger’s Post of The Day.

Review writ­ten by MIMI LENOX.

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{ 3 comments }

1 Charles Gramlich June 19, 2008 at 4:51 pm

A pow­er­ful post. I learned some things.

2 Bud Weiser, WTIT June 20, 2008 at 4:06 pm

Mimi–
Great post. It makes us real­ize all that is at stake…

3 Mona_Elfarra June 21, 2008 at 12:12 am

i am pleased and hnoured ‚for nomona­tion my lat­est post for the best post of the month award at your site , for me i am glad that i man­aged to raise the voice of the voice­less ‚via my writ­ings , i write on behalf of thou­sands of women , men and chil­dren , whom i meet every­day dur­ing my work and activism , thier suf­fer­ing in every­day life while search­ing for free­dom .search­ing for liv­ing in peace and dig­nity ‚
thanks again
yours sinceely
Mona ElFarra

iam a mother , physi­cian and human rights activist , i also spent most of my life in pales­tine , was born and bread in Khanyu­nis south of the Gaza strip , i love coun­try side, my big schock but also was big moti­va­tion for me to write , to write was when the Israeli occu­pa­tion forces , demol­ished my par­ents home and at he same times , razed our fam­ily land and uprooted thou­sands of fruit­full and old trees at that day , for 26 fam­i­lies ‚who became home­less ‚dur­ing my work i realise how the injus­tice and war affects the women and chil­dren badly .
i am work­ing to pro­mot health in my coun­try , and also to give chil­dren more space and chance to ven­ti­late at diffrent kids club , i helped in found­ing some of it , where the chil­dren can play , dance read and paint learn eng­lish and IT , and also keep the pales­tin­ian tra­di­tions alive , by learnig to dance the DABKA , the pales­tin­ian folok­lore dance

iam work­ing for peace that is based on jus­tice .
with all my love
Mona ElFarra

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